By raising our deductible and reducing our coverage to building only, we were able to get adequate flood insurance for a much more reasonable premium. And we realized that all of our other options would have had us paying even bigger carrying costs (not to mention bigger total sale prices) for houses that we didn't like as well, and that didn't have good access to the right highways.

The flood thing is a very, very big nuisance... but we decided that this was still the right place for us to live.